55059 Media Arts Forms and Aesthetics

Recommended studies: This subject assumes a student's knowledge in media arts, cultural studies, fine arts or related media studies

Handbook description

In this subject students develop and deepen their media literacy and skills of media analysis in order to enable a more active and critical engagement with the creative arts environment as well as an expansion of their understandings of their own work. The subject also opens a sense of possibilities for students to expand their own practice. Students engage with a wide range of specific media objects and experiences, including those delivered by sound, video, film and new media. They also study theories and critical writings that address key ideas and concepts of aesthetics, forms and modes, and meanings pertaining to electronic media. The subject explores a range of understandings of what creative practice is and how research informs creative practice. Students are encouraged to take an open and experimental approach in the sense of questioning their own assumptions and practices, and those of others, as to what constitutes good creative practice and creative work. One of the key concerns of the subject is to enable active engagement with the creative practices outside the university context and understand the way in which works fit into and create a dynamic complex ecology, a system of interdependent propositions and reactions.

Subject objectives/outcomes

The subject seeks to:

1. develop advanced level media literacy through skills of critical analysis and reflection on media works
2. develop advanced knowledge of media arts creative fields of practice, historically and currently
3. develop advanced knowledge of key ideas and practices in media arts creative practice: including aesthetics, forms and modes
4. develop advanced knowledge of a wide range of ways of engagement with and understanding of audience
5. provide opportunities to engage with the arts community, including engagement with events, exhibitions, visiting creative artists
6. develop an advanced theoretical and working understanding of creative practice as a way of knowing and thinking that becomes visible/audible/sensible in the work.

Contribution to graduate profile

This subject:

• contributes to a deeper understanding of the debates on theoretical and methodological issues in creative practice
• enhances creative and communication professional skills and capabilities
• builds critical intellectual understanding of contemporary creative practices, cultural forms, and innovative possibilities within both
• develops critical knowledge of methods in creative research and builds capabilities at an introductory level in original, independent, and self-directed research
• enhances capacities to engage in the creative process
• enhances ability to think critically and creatively about current and future developments in the local and international field of creative practice.

Teaching and learning strategies

• Weekly seminars and flexible learning
• An extensive audition/viewing program of new media works
• Reading and analysis of texts
• Student presentation of seminar papers and participation in workshops
• Student online activities and projects
• Major essay

Content

In this subject, students will develop and deepen their media literacy and skills of media analysis. This will enable them both to engage more actively and critically with the creative arts environment as well as to expand their understandings of their own work. As a result, they will have an understanding of the possibilities of expanding their practice. Students will engage with a wide range of specific media objects and experiences, including those delivered by sound, video, film, new media. They will also study theories and critical writings that address key ideas and concepts of aesthetics, forms and modes, and meanings pertaining to electronic media. The subject will explore a range of understandings of what creative practice is and how research informs creative practice. Students will be encouraged to take an open and experimental approach in the sense of questioning their own assumptions and practices, and those of others, as to what constitutes 'good' creative practice and creative work. One of the key concerns of the subject is to enable active engagement with the creative practices outside the university context and understand the way in which works fit into and create a dynamic complex 'ecology', a system of inter-dependent propositions and reactions.

Most sessions will be in the lecture and tutorial mode. The tutorials will involve study and discussion of theoretical and critical material, as well as examining works to analyse modes and forms of creative practice. There will be discussion, research, group exercises and class presentations on topics relating to the subject. Students will reflect on reading and viewing/listening practices through contributions to UTS online class website. Assessment will involve writing of creative and reflective responses to works and theories, both short form and longer essays.

Assessment

Assessment item 1: Paper for UTS online discussion

Assessment item 2: Creative Practice

Minimum requirements

Satisfactory completion of all assessment items and regular (at least 9 weeks) participation in class learning activities such as compiling a research dossier and UTS online.

Indicative references

ML – Markets Library
CR – Closed Reserve
ER – Electronic Reserve (full text). From library catalogue, click on 'Reserve Collection by Subject'. Enter 57043 or 'New Media Aesthetics'.

Works to view/use/listen to/interact with:
A full list of works to be used in conjunction with classes will be provided on UTSOnline and may be updated during semester as further references come to hand. Students preparing to lead a tutorial discussion should familiarise themselves with these works PRIOR to the class.

Week 2
Readings
Darren Tofts, 'What is Media Art' in Interzone: Media Arts in Australia, (Australia: Craftsman House/Thames and Hudson, 2005) pp 12-29 (ER)
Andrew Murphie and John Potts, 'Digital aesthetics: new labels for the new aesthetic,' in Culture and Technology (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) pp 84-94 (ER ML)
Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, 'Introduction: The Double Logic of Remediation' in Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press, 2000) (ER)
Lev Manovich, 'What is New Media?' The Language of New Media (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001). (ER ML)

Further reference
Timothy Murray, Digital Incompossibility: Cruising The Aesthetic Haze Of The New Media, Ctheory, www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=121

Week 3
Readings
Charles Grivel 'The Phonograph's Horned Mouth' in Douglas Kahn and Gregory Whitehead, (eds.), The Wireless Imagination, (Cambridge, MA: the MIT Press, 1992) (ER)
Margaret Morse, "What do Cyborgs Eat", in Gretchen Bender and Timothy Druckrey, Culture on the Brink, 1994. (ER) Full book: 303.483 Bend Also available in Margaret Morse, Virtualities: Television, Media Art, and Cyberculture (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 1998)
Paolo Atzori and Kirk Woolford, 'Extended-Body: An Interview with Stelarc', Ctheory,
www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=71
John Sutton: 'Porous Memory and the cognitive life of things' in Darren Tofts, Annmarie Johnson and Alessio Cavallero (eds) Prefiguring Cyberculture: An Intellectual History, (Australia and USA, Power Publications and MIT Press, 2002) (ER)

Further reference

Distributed aesthetics: http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue7/index.html
Critical Art Ensemble, 'The Coming of Age of the Flesh Machine' in Timothy Druckrey (ed.) Electronic culture: technology and visual representation, (New York: Aperture, 1996).

Week 4
Readings
Annmarie Chandler and Norie Neumark (eds.) At a Distance: Precursors to Art and Activism on the Internet (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005). Chapter 1, Introduction by Norie Neumark and Chapter 5, 'Fluxus Praxis: An Exploration of Connections, Creativity, and Community,' by Owen F. Smith. (ML ER)
Craig Saper, "Fluxus as a Laboratory" in Ken Friedman (ed.), The Fluxus Reader. Chicester, West Sussex, New York: Academy Editions, 1998. (ER)
Fluxus: The History of an Attitude: Books: Owen F. Smith
Owen Smith, A Pilgrim's Progress
http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/atca/subjugated/five_13.htm
Owen, Smith. 1998. Fluxus: The History of an Attitude. San Diego: San Diego State University. Press.
Melanie Swalwell (2003) 'New/Inter/Media', Convergence, special issue: What is Intermedia? vol. 8, no. 4 (ER)

Week 5
Readings To be announced.

Week 6
Readings
Ross Gibson, 'The Rise of Digital Multimedia Systems:, (ER)
Peter Weibel, 'Expanded Cinema,' in Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel (eds.) Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary after Film (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003) (ML ER)
Michael Joyce, 'Interactive Planes: Toward Post-Hypertextual New Media' in in Brunhild Bushoff (ed) Sagasnet reader: Developing Interactive Narrative Content, (Munich, High Text Verlag 2005) pp 126-147 (ER),
Jean-Louis Boissier, 'The Relation Image' and 'La Morale Sensitive' in Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel (eds.) Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary after Film (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003) (ER)

Further reference
'Let's make a monster,' in Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel (eds.) Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary after Film (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003) (ER)
Vivian Sobchak, 'Nostalgia for the Digital Object,' in Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel (eds.) Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary after Film (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003) (ER)

Week 7
Readings
Jeremy Turner, 'The Microsound scene: An Interview with Kim Cascone,' ctheory,
www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=322
Christiane Paul, Digital Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 2003) 132-137 'Sound and Music
DJ Spooky, http://www.l-m-c.org.uk/LMCframeset3.html
Charles Mudade, 'the Turntable' ctheory, www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=382

Works to look at and listen to:
Negativland: http://www.negativland.com/
Ian Andrews: http://radioscopia.org
DJ Spooky aka that subliminal kid: www.djspooky.com/index2.html
Radioqualia: http://radio-astronomy.net

Further reference:
Chris Cutler, 'A history of plunderphonics':
www.l-m-c.org.uk/texts/plunder.html

Week 10
Readings To be announced.

Week 11
Readings
Jordan Crandall, 'Anything That Moves: Armed Vision' ctheory.net 72
http://jordancrandall.com/main/writings/writingsmenu.html
John E. McGrath, Loving Big Brother: Performance, privacy and surveillance space. London: Routledge, 2004. Preface and Chapter 5, 'Staging the Spectator' (ER)
'Wired Ruins" Ctheory.net Multimedia
http://ctheorymultimedia.cornell.edu/issue3/digiterr.htm
Timothy Murray, 'Digital Terror' Ctheory,
www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=420
'Ludology,' in Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan (eds.) First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004) (ER) See also:
www.electronicbookreview.com/v3/threads/threadtoc.jsp?thread=firstperson
and Jane McGonigal, 'Notes Toward a More Pervasive Cyberdramaturgy'
Jane McGonigal, "A Real Little Game: The Performance of Belief in Pervasive Play." Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) "Level Up" Conference
Proceedings. November 2003 http://avantgame.com/writings.htm
Jonathon Crary, Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture, London (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999) pp. 1-5, 72-5 (ER)

Works to look at:
Selectpark's game art archives, www.selectparks.net
www.escapefromwoomera.org
Jonah Bruckner-Cohen see especially Bumplist
www.coin-operated.com/projects
www.underash.net
www.hackaday.com
www.thehacktivist.com/index.php
Electronic Disturbance Theatre
www.thing.net/Erdom/ecd/ecd.html
www.critical-art.net

Further reference
William Bogard, Distraction and Digital Culture (ctheory.net 88)
www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=131
'game' issue of MC,
hwww.media-culture.org.au/past_vol_3.html
Henry Jenkins 'Games, the New Lively Art.'
http://web.mit.edu/21fms/www/faculty/henry3/GamesNewLively.html
John Johnston, 'Machinic Vision', Critical Inquiry 26, Autumn 1999, pp. 27-48.
Lev Manovich, 'The Paradoxes of Digital Photography',
www-apparitions.ucsd.edu/~manovich/text/digital_photo.html
Paul Virilio, The Vision Machine (London: BFI, 1994)
Paul Virilio, The Information Bomb (London: Verso 2000) chapter 7.

General:
Further useful references in Markets Library are:
Sean Cubitt, Digital Aesthetics (London: Sage, 1998) (ML. 004.019 CUBI)
Andrew Murphie and John Potts, Culture and Technology, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. (ML 306.36 MURP)
Annmarie Jonson, Alessio Cavallero (eds), Prefiguring Cyberculture: an intellectual history, Power Press, 2003 (303.4833 TOFT CR)
Oliver Grau, From Illusion to Immersion (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003)
Darren Tofts, Parallax: essays on art, culture and text (700.1 TOFT CR)
Ken Goldberg (ed.), The robot in the garden : telerobotics and telepistemology in the age of the Internet, (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000)
Randall Packer and Ken Jordan, (eds), Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality (NY: Norton, 2001) (ML 006.7 PACK.)
Peter Lunenfeld (ed.) The Digital Dialectic: New Essays on New Media (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000) (ML 303.4834 LUNE)
Timothy Druckrey (ed.) Electronic culture: technology and visual representation (New York: Aperture, 1996) (ML 701.105 DRUC. CR)
Timothy Druckrey (ed) Ars Electronic: facing the future: a survey of two decades (Linz: Ars Electronica, 1999) (ML. 700 DRUC. CR)
Paul Virilio, The Information Bomb (London: Verso, 2000)
Verena Andermatt Conley (ed), Rethinking technologies (Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1993)
Peter Weibel and Timothy Druckrey (eds.), Net-condition: art and global media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001)
Verena Andermatt Conley (ed), Rethinking technologies, Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1993. (ML 601/12)
Michael Joyce, Of Two Minds; hypertext pedagogy and poetics MIT Press, Leonardo Book 2000. (800 JOYC CR)
Friedrich Kittler, 'There is no software', literature, media: information systems, London: Routledge, 1997. (ML 302.23 KITT)
John Johnston, 'Machinic Vision', Critical Inquiry 26 (Autumn, 1999)
Manuel de Landa, A Thousand Years of Non-Linear History, (Cambridge, MA: Zone Books, 2000) (ML 501 DELA)

Useful online theory sites:-
Ctheory, www.ctheory.net/default.asp (A huge array of digital /culture articles)
Lev Manovich online www.manovich.net
www.dichtung-digital.org/english.htm
www.netartreview.net

Lists you might want to join:
Fibreculture, www.fibreculture.org
Empyre www.subtle.net/empyre
Please circulate info about other useful or interesting lists on through UTSOnline, on the 'Useful Resources' thread.

Net art resources:
www.furtherfield.org
www.rhizome.org
www.whitney.org/artport/Whitney Museum portal to net art
www.turbulence.org/another big net art site
www.tate.org.uk/netart/default.htm tate gallery net art site
www.netartreview.net/this also has exc links to net art- see the new media fix
www.rhizome.org
www.altx.net mark amerika's online portal
www.javamuseum.org/start1.htm
www.subtle.net melinda rackham's net art site
www.cyberpoiesis.net/shortcuts/interviews/FAQs with net artists
www.selectparks.net game art archive
www.alternativemuseum.org

Look at one or both of the new hypertext-ish journals that have recently come out: an issue of JoDI http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v03/i03/editorial.html
and 'inflect', hosted by the University of Canberra www.ce.canberra.edu.au/inflect
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/newmedia/lexia/index.htmTalan Memmott From Lexia to Perplexia
http://www.ineradicablestain.com/Shelley Jackson
Trace online writing http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/index.htm